ABOUT OUR PROJECT

Monday, May 26, 2014

Your support is needed to save community education in St. Louis Public Schools.

All 10 community education centers are slated to close permanently as of May 30, 2014.

I believe in community education and will take a stand at the next Special Administrative Board (SAB) meeting, to be held on Thursday, May 29, 2014 at 6:00 pm at 801 N. 11th. Please join me in supporting the young people in our city by advocating for our community education centers to remain open.

Here’s what you can do to help:

1. Plan to attend the SAB meeting on Thursday, May 29and take a standwith me.

Literally, I will ask audience members who support community education to stand in a show of support – the more people we have present the more influence we will have as a community.

2. Invite others who believe in community education to the SAB meeting, where they too can make their voice heard.

Let’s achieve standing room only at this meeting!

3. If you, or a student or parent who you know has been directly impacted through the community education centers in SLPS, please attend,

share your experience and voice your support. You may also contact the superintendent (345-2500) and SAB directly (345-2304) to express your support of community education in SLPS.

In response, corporate controlled school system, legislature, and city push privatization, vouchers, the underfunding of struggling schools, forced bankruptcy of the hardest-hit district, prison-style charter schools for some, gentrification charters (public $ to privately controlled schools in 'revitalized' neighborhoods) for others, and no vision for addressing structural poverty and underemployment.

Monday, May 5, 2014

Brendan Fischer and Lisa Graves, The ProgressiveApril 29, 2014"By examining what Sinquefield is up to in Missouri, you get a sobering glimpse of how the wealthiest conservatives are conducting a low-profile campaign to destroy civil society."

Unlike the Koch Brothers, who made their money the old-fashioned way, by inheriting it, Sinquefield is a self-made man, who earned a fortune in the stock market by investing in index funds.

He's a major funder of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and he has also bankrolled the Club for Growth.

Though he was born in Missouri, he didn't move back there until 2005, after being away nearly four decades.

Now he claims to know how to "fix" the state. To an astonishing degree, over the last few years, Missouri's political landscape has been dominated by the wish list of just this one man.

Sinquefield is doing to Missouri what the Koch Brothers are doing to the entire country. For the Koch Brothers and Sinquefield, a lot of the action these days is not at the national but at the state level.

By examining what Sinquefield is up to in Missouri, you get a sobering glimpse of how the wealthiest conservatives are conducting a low-profile campaign to destroy civil society."READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE

WHO WE ARE

We are independent researchers, including undergraduate and graduate students and faculty. We carry out our research under the oversight of the Washington University Human Subjects Review Board. However, we do not represent Washington University and are not associated with the various official activities of the university in relationship to public schools. In addition, while we are in dialogue with many people in the district, we do not represent the St. Louis Public Schools (SLPS). For more information, write the project coordinator, Bret Gustafson (gustafson [at] wustl.edu).